Change Healthcare Disconnects Systems Amid Cyberattack

Change Healthcare, part of Optum, has disconnected its systems to prevent further impact as a result of an ongoing cybersecurity issue. Change Healthcare is experiencing a network interruption due to a cyberattack, the company stated in a notice on its website. Change Healthcare is part of health tech company Optum, which is owned by healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group as of 2022. Through its platform, Change processes patient payments for healthcare organizations across the country.

Additional reporting in the HIPAA Journal states that Change Healthcare provides prescription processing services through Optum which provides services to over 67,000 U.S. pharmacies and serves 129 million patients. Change Healthcare handles more than 15 billion healthcare transactions each year and says one in three patient records in the United States are touched by its clinical connectivity solutions. Change Healthcare is used by Tricare, the healthcare provider of the U.S. military, and all military pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals have been affected by the disruption caused by the Change Healthcare cyberattack, and retail pharmacies across the country are experiencing delays processing prescriptions and have been unable to send orders through insurance plans.

In a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday, UnitedHealth confirmed that confirming that Change Healthcare had experienced a cyberattack that affected dozens of systems. At this stage of the incident response, it is too early to tell if any patient data has been exposed or stolen in the attack and neither UnitedHealth nor Change Healthcare could provide a timeline on when systems will be brought back online.